


say that you only need me

by pinkfen



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bands, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Boyfriends, Childhood Friends, Confessions, Cute, Drabbles, Falling In Love, Ficlets, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kisses, Late Night Conversations, Late Night Drives, Light Angst, M/M, Road Trips, Romantic Fluff, Slice of Life, Soft Boys, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28957731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkfen/pseuds/pinkfen
Summary: Two unconnected drabbles.Chapter 1: ‘It’s only in these random, nothing moments that it occurs to Donghyuck they may ultimately be like cars in the night, only able to pass each other, never to peer in.’Chapter 2: ‘They’ve known each other the whole of their seventeen and a half years, through preschool and elementary and middle school up to the time Renjun became the smartest student in their grade in high school and Donghyuck vice-captain of the basketball team.’
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rework of my 2019 got7 drabble collection ‘every night and day, just’ for renhyuck bc these drabbles are all about the lo-fi vibe and I felt they suited the rework more than any other pairing! :) if you’ve read my previous short oneshot ‘brand new’, it actually also came from this ficlet collection which had three parts, and these are the other two parts I’m posting now. Btw I really really want to thank every reader who showed love to brand new and enjoyed it as it’s one of my personal favourite fics I’m proudest of and renhyuck nation gave it so much love, it just made posting that fic [and my other renhyucks] a wonderful and warm experience :’) I won’t ramble on too much and make this note a drabble in itself lmao but do check out my other fics for this pairing if you like my writing, and the second chapter of this will be posted asap.

Donghyuck’s secondhand Hyundai, driven by Renjun, glides almost smoothly through the night. It’s raining, though, so Renjun is staring straight ahead down the open road, concentrating. Donghyuck doesn’t say anything about it being a bad day for a road trip, and Renjun doesn’t say it was his idea to begin with. It’s kind of peaceful, really. The rain outside seals the car into a vacuum of sorts, that reminds Donghyuck oddly of limbo, of time capsules. The rhythmic waving of the windshield wipers is hypnotic.

Like this, the radio is muffled behind the rain sounds, white noise playing in the background, but then Donghyuck hears the unmistakable opening chords of a familiar song, the piano melody achingly sweet.

It’s been almost ten years now since he first heard this song, and he’d changed so much, between. Almost so beyond recognition that the song is more friendly than his past self.

Donghyuck reaches to turn the volume knob up, till the music fills the small space of the car. Renjun looks over at him, then, and smiles faintly. He turns the heater dial up.

Donghyuck smiles back, then looks at the raindrops tracking determinedly down the windowpane, in dotted lines. He can sense Renjun continuing to look at him as they idle at a traffic light. Blurred car headlights in the distance shimmer in and out, pretty red and yellow. It’s 4am, so Renjun doesn’t really need to pay so much attention to the virtually deserted roads until they take the exit to the highway.

*

Even not looking at him, Donghyuck can feel Renjun’s presence, quietly solid, steady, self-possessed. When they were younger and the band was just debuting, fans used to comment on how Renjun admired him obviously, always glowing under his attention.

What they — and he — hadn’t realised was that Renjun is like a chameleon: he does make the people around him shine, but there’s an invisible core inside him wholly his own, and decidedly unknowable. When Donghyuck peeled back the layers he found that.

But Renjun hadn’t hesitated to open that threshold up to him too, fearlessly, wholeheartedly. In fact, he faced life and its myriad challenges with this selfsame temerity — for instance, Donghyuck had battled the discovery of his sexuality with much less grace. There was this unshakable inner calm about Renjun that drew Donghyuck in. When he saw it, he recognised without a doubt that he himself possessed no such quality.

It seldom mattered because Renjun is strong enough for them both. He’s frequently Donghyuck’s anchor in storms, both literally and figuratively.

*

It’s only in these random, nothing moments when it occurs to Donghyuck that they may ultimately be like cars in the night, only able to pass each other, never to peer in. He wonders then, questions — why where Renjun has that core of warmth Donghyuck has buried within him a hollow void of loneliness that seems to grow with each year, despite Renjun, despite their bandmates, despite his career.

Possibly, he thinks too much about such things — but the cogs and gears of his mind never feel like they’re moving to him, just automatically spinning in the background of quotidian life.

Is it stupid to worry that this abyss will one day grow big enough to swallow him — yes, he decides, that’s too dramatic.

But there’s still that vague unease in the peripheral, lurking.

*

The song has ended, and the radio station is now playing one he doesn’t like. If only people still did things like making road trip playlists.

"It wasn’t a waste of time.” Renjun’s voice breaks into his thoughts abruptly, unexpected.

"Huh?” Donghyuck finally turns to stare at him, a little surprised.

Renjun just smiles, that mysterious way he does, and repeats patiently, “None of it was a waste of time.”

 _None of what_ , Donghyuck wants to ask. Instead he stammers, “How did you know what I was thinking?"

Renjun grins then, flashing teeth.

"Read your mind.” He sounds smug.

Donghyuck can’t help his smile, still a little flustered, and another song he knows is creeping in. One of those unabashedly romantic ones.

Renjun is looking back at the front, his hands gripping the wheel. Donghyuck lets the rich emotion of the singer’s voice fill the space between them, and thinks of how he both craves and feels frighteningly apathetic about these things in equal measure: singing, and Renjun. The way he feels about life itself.

"Love you, Hyuckie,” Renjun says, expression serious now. He’s still facing the road carefully, voice slightly gruff, and in a rush, the feeling floods back — the almost painful yearning, almost too much to bear. Donghyuck relaxes; and allows the full intensity to suffuse his being.

Renjun moves a hand to the gearshift, and Donghyuck hesitates, throat dry, before gently covering it. Renjun looks over again, his eyes dark in the glow of the streetlamps. The rain is lighter now, but shows no signs of ending.

*

“We’re going to be okay,” Donghyuck says, hoarsely. He tightens his hand over Renjun’s knuckles, his warm skin.

"Yes,” Renjun whispers, their eyes locking, then leans over and kisses him.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s not the last day of high school, but it is the last year, and the first ever year in Renjun’s life the word last inspires a bittersweet tang in him.

They’re at _that_ age, when everything is starting to feel murky and uncertain and complicated — but without exception, each dawn still shimmers with possibility.

He hears the irregular _thump thump thump_ ing of Donghyuck’s basketball on the asphalt of the sidewalk before Renjun sees him. Then his shadow turns the corner, long and hazy in the dim light.

On cue, Renjun’s heart skips a beat and his breath catches. That’s a first. They’ve known each other the whole of their seventeen and a half years, through preschool and elementary and middle school up to the time Renjun became the smartest student in their grade in high school and Donghyuck vice-captain of the basketball team.

Nobody knows they still observe the ritual of walking to school together in the wee hours of the morning, not even their new best friends, the head prefect Jaemin and Jeno, captain of the basketball team.

Which has been a secret harder to keep than it sounds, since Jaemin and Jeno are publicly known to be inseparable buds themselves.

*

Renjun kind of likes it this way, actually — it’s not like they’re ashamed of how different they are; just that it’s nice to have this closeness all to themselves, when the rest of the world thinks they’ve long drifted apart.

Some things don’t have to be shouted from the rooftops — because they occupy the quietest corner of one’s heart.

They don’t even talk much during these meandering walks; but Donghyuck always takes the side of the pavement closest to the road, and sometimes he dribbles his worn ratty ball as he walks and Renjun thinks he’ll skip dessert at recess so he can add a penny to the fund he’s saving up to buy a new basketball.

In all honesty, he’d already saved enough before Donghyuck’s latest birthday, and was fully intending to buy it then. But then Renjun's birthday had come around, a few months prior, and Donghyuck hadn’t given him anything except verbal wishes on the morning of.

He’d overthought it, and felt, irrationally, that a basketball — or any gift, really — after that, would feel unnaturally momentous.

Now, Renjun doesn’t know if it’s because he’s a bit older, or something about the morning air and sky, but that all feels petty, trivial and insignificant.

He should’ve just done what he wanted, and bought Donghyuck the basketball so he could have a new one for the last year before graduation.

"Are you still gonna play in university?” he blurts out, apropos of nothing.

Donghyuck looks over at him, expression slightly confused and amused.

"This?” He twirls the ball on a fingertip.

Renjun nods sheepishly. The leaves rustle overhead in the faintest breeze which ruffles through Donghyuck’s almost messy hair, and he tears his eyes away, chest suddenly too full to look.

Donghyuck has continued walking, hugging the ball to his chest now. Renjun glances at his shoulders, then catches up.

"I don’t know,” Donghyuck says, giving him a carefree smile. “Why?"

Renjun shrugs. “No reason."

*

They walk a few more paces, in companionable silence, then Donghyuck says, “Do you want me to?"

Renjun looks at him sharply. “What?"

"I mean — do you think I should?” Now it’s Donghyuck’s turn to look sheepish.

"It's up to you.” Renjun rolls his shoulders again, thrown. “Do you still enjoy it?"

"Hmm.” Donghyuck plays a finger over chapped lips, and Renjun’s eyes follow the movement unconsciously.

*

”I have something to tell you.” The words slip out of his mouth in a daze.

Donghyuck pauses a beat, turns to look at him with head tilted slightly and eyes narrowed with interest.

"What is it?” For some reason, he sounds almost eager.

Renjun swallows. “Not now. On graduation day."

"Graduation day,” Donghyuck echoes, voice low. Renjun just nods, throat dry.

"Okay.” Donghyuck nods too, decisively. After a heartbeat, he adds, “I’ve got something to tell you too."

"What?” Renjun gasps, and Donghyuck laughs out loud at the look on his face. He counters, eyes twinkling with mischief: “Graduation day."

"No fair!” Renjun grabs his shoulder, but drops his hand when Donghyuck eyes it. He hopes he’s not blushing. His fingers tingle.

Donghyuck’s shirt is creased where Renjun’s fingerprints are left, fading. He doesn’t straighten it.

Renjun looks up, and Donghyuck is still looking at him, quietly. His expression is unreadable now, for one of the first times since Renjun has known him.

*

”You wanna tell me now?” Donghyuck blinks, then cracks a smirk.

"No!” Renjun shoves him, and his basketball rolls into the bushes. Donghyuck laughs easily, and dives in after it.

*

”I’ll make you spill it first,” Renjun threatens, voice wobbly, when Donghyuck emerges with grass stains on his pristine uniform shirt and hair tousled handsomely.

"Oh?” Donghyuck runs his razor sharp eyes over Renjun, from head to toe, and Renjun swears he _shivers_. “We’ll see, Junnie.”

**Author's Note:**

> As I mentioned these drabbles are all about a certain *aesthetic* which I really love and felt suits this pairing a lot, so I hope you had a little pleasure reading and vibed hehe. iirc the second drabble is slightly longer lmao
> 
> Thank you for reading! Drop me a lil kudos if you felt something ;)


End file.
